For a Racerunner thing I built, we need some way of dampening out the steering – we’ve tried springs to centre the steering, but looking for something better – does anyone know how motorbike steering dampers work? Are they just like shock absorbers, or do they have a spring too? Do they just damp out oscillations, or do they spring back to the centre position too?

Cheers 😉

No centreing mechanism on any m/cycle steering damper I’ve used.

Oil based push pull rod through a cylinder. No spring at all.

Ah okay, cheers – that might just do the trick.

Chinese ones are decent value for money

Excellent, I’ll get something off of eBay and give it a go. Thanks 😉

Are Racerunners similar geo to trikes?

Is it a fast shimmy at certain speeds or a constant instability?

This is the beastie:

It’s more that the rider finds it hard to steer straight when running hard.

Odyssey used to make a mountain bike one. Back in the day and hopey still make them:

http://www.hopey.org

Just tighten the headset up a bit and forget the damper! 🙂
That’s how the old friction dampers worked.

Hydraulic motorbike dampers allow the steering to move normally under steady inputs but stop ‘tankslappers’ and high speed oscillation under load – got to be worth trying.

Could you fit a steering lock restrictor as well?

If constant sharp movements aren’t required, could you radically change the geo to improve stability at the expense of agility?
Something self centering, perhaps a tiller?

EDIT – just seen the above Odyssey link. They look good. 🙂

Have you simply tried wider bars? They look awful narrow to me.

It’s just possible I have an old one in the garage, I’ll have a look tonight. Lots of standard GSXR ones available as people took them off and replaced them with functionally identical but gold Ohlins ones 😉

The bar angle is just funny – they’re normal width. Talking to her, a dampener sounds like the perfect solution.

Bencooper. What do you use one of these for? Serious question!

It’s for use on a running track, for people with balance or stability problems.

That might be an idea for one of my friends – is there an association? Did a quick google search and ended up with results relating to truck parts…

I think there are a few about – try googling “racerunning”.

Racing wheelchairs ben….canhave self centering locked or rotatable

I googled racerunner… I’m a dumbass – I know!

Before you go down the line of welding mounts on for a damper, have you tried simple bar end weights? These can stop some of the initial weave.

I’ve already brazed on the mounts, so that’s no problem – not sure weights would do the trick, they’d have to be pretty massive to damp out someone pushing against them. It’s not a steering-induced wobble it’s a rider-induced one, if that makes sense.

We looked at the wheelchair setup, but they’re really designed for when you can’t have your hands on the bars – not a problem for this.